Review XY027: Flabebe and the Fairy Flower!

[JacobYBM]

The key word here is "often." We know that an episode of Pocket Monsters takes about six months to make, from conception to completion, and that this has been the case at least up until early Best Wishes! (character art sheets for the Aloe episodes, which aired in December 2010, have a June 2010 date on them) It *is* possible that they've found a way to speed things up considerably since then but I haven't seen anything to suggest that it has.

With that said, though, this was an extremely simple text edit that would not have taken the animators any time at all to do.

That early stuff has nothing to do with the subject on hand, though. The scenario writer takes maybe two weeks to write the script, but that (and character designs) are done months in advance because the series has to plan six months ahead for scheduling (Naruto Shippuuden does the same). The actual production of the episode is done months later due to whoever is available. The character designs for Aloe would have been completed six months in advance because she's a prominent character of the games, so of course the character designer at the time would have completed most of the designs ahead of schedule.

OLM churns episodes out between one and three months, like most other studios. The time is actually closer to less than two months, though. Three months is something you'll see assigned to a high-end episode, but Pocket Monster doesn't do big budget episodes like Naruto or late-night cartoons. The average episode of a television animated episode has about three hundred cuts (shots). A average key animator can handle about two cuts per day, although I hear four isn't unheard of, either. That's a bare minimum of fourteen cuts a week for a single animator (Shida Naotoshi of Toei Animation is the only animator I've ever heard of to actually take vacations and that's just from what we know from his Twitter). Many animators work on a single episode, so the actual key animation proves could easily be completed in two weeks (or one, depending on whether or not fifty animators had to be assigned due to terrible planning). After the key animators create their layouts they are given to the background department to create the non-moving portions of each cut, like newspapers or graffiti on the wall.

Storyboarding usually lasts three or four weeks, but the pair of Asada Yuuji and Iwane Masa'aki (who does all three hundred cuts himself and even finds the time to work on other shows or episodes) churn out episodes consistently at six weeks an episode.

I think what's more amazing is the fact that someone actually remembered that this was a thing; can you imagine what it was like in the offices of OLM. "Looks like we have to postpone the Kuzumo episode for a while and OMG THE DATE ON THAT NEWSPAPER IN THAT ONE SHOT IS WRONG NOW QUICK SOMEBODY FIX IT GO GO GO!!!!"

Well, that's sort of what I was getting at with my comment on when episodes are finished. It's not entirely unlikely that that cut had not even been finished when the delay occurred. Schedules are usually so bad that episodes aren't finished until a few days or hours before they're set to air so we can't say that cut was 'fixed' when it's very likely it hadn't even existed at the point the delay was made.

 

[ArvAl]

Yo bros the sub version has just come out today and I wonder if you rewatch this again and the results were still half dramatically funny though and quite happy to see that Bonnie/Eureka mature up for a little bit

 

[zhixun]

Too bad for Eureka did not get a second Pokémon to take care of. She is being mature even she is just a kid. Unlike Masato steals his father's badge upon defeat in the gym. I think Eureka will eventually have another Pokémon to keep. Her enthusiasm in Pokémon is more than that of Serena's in my opinion.

Rocket is not necessary for this episode appearance and I think this is just the chance to sell the starters in XY. Fokko's appearance is totally unnecessary because she dis nothing towards the fighting with the Rocket. Keromatsu is not bad in battling although Sonans send the attack right back to the starter trio. Harimaron should have been used better such as he can use Tsuru No Muchi to grab Flabebe's flower.

It is nice to see that Flabebe took the job of defeating Rocket rather the group using brute force to make them blast off. This is similar to Taiji in real life that you win battles not just only using force.

 

[Dogasu]

OLM churns episodes out between one and three months, like most other studios. The time is actually closer to less than two months, though.

Are you just assuming that's the case because that's how other shows are run? Or do you have some information related specifically to Pocket Monsters that's giving you this "one to three month" figure? And if so would you be willing to share what that is?

The reason I ask is because the part I quoted there directly contradicts other sources we've had in the past in regards to how this particular show is made. There's the aforementioned Aloe character sheets (which actually are relevant here because I stated "from conception to completion" and those sheets were made specifically for the episode). There's also the interview WPM conducted with producer Masamitsu Hidaka ("How far in advance do you make the episodes and movies? He stated 6 months for the episodes, 1 1.5 months for the voice acting, and 1 year for the movies (which we already knew). He also said in the previous interview that it takes him one week to make a storyboard per each episode, which I forgot to mention.") which, while a bit old, has not been contradicted by anyone else working on the show since. And then there's the production art for BW 020 that sunyshore obtained six months before the episode aired.

All of this contradicts the claim that it only takes "one to three months" to complete an episode of this show.

You've obviously spent a lot of time studying this subject and know a lot about how animation is done in Japan. You seem to know what you're talking about. I just don't buy this idea that it only takes one to three months to make this show.

 

[JacobYBM]

OLM churns episodes out between one and three months, like most other studios. The time is actually closer to less than two months, though.

Are you just assuming that's the case because that's how other shows are run? Or do you have some information related specifically to Pocket Monsters that's giving you this "one to three month" figure? And if so would you be willing to share what that is?

No, it was just an educated guess. Three months is for higher end episode, like Naruto Shippuuden Episode #194 (which aired three months after Episode Director Sessha Gorou's last episode, #180). This is a tangent, but I've heard rumblings that Naruto Shippuuden #167 might've had four months considering the large number of complex cuts were handled by only three key animators. Yamashita Hiroyuki directs, storyboards, and acts as animation supervisor for his own episodes these days, but those are three or four months apart so he can have the time to have as few middle men between him and the key animators as possible.

Now, mind you, long-running series do tend to have better planning (unless you're Toei Animation), but the rotation of the staff makes it clear episodes are produced much quicker than six months. Some say storyboarding takes one month, some say three weeks, Yuasa Masa'aki ten days, or if you're Hidaka (how many episodes did he even direct himself, anyway?) one week. Let's assume Asada Yuuji can knock a storyboard out between one and four weeks. Iwane Masa'aki provides a good three hundred cuts of key animation himself every five-to-six weeks. This year alone he has done four episodes himself and will probably be confirmed for having done a fifth himself once Episode #29 airs. Iwane works so quickly Asada has to have Kawada Takenori storyboard episodes for him because he can't keep up. The average key animator can usually only do two cuts per day. Episode #27 had sixteen key animators and four 'second key animators'. Second key animators is indicative of a rushed schedule because their job is to clean up very rough key animation drawings. If an episode has multiple animation supervisors (like Episode #9 called in Iwane Masa'aki as an Sakuga Kantoku Housa) that too is indicative of being behind schedule. The rotation of episode directors and animation supervisors is short enough that Iwane Masa'aki can pop in-and-out every six weeks.

Here is a neat three part article from Cindy Yamauchi, an English-speaking animator working in Japan, which describes even more information regarding the manner in which the industry works.

The reason I ask is because the part I quoted there directly contradicts other sources we've had in the past in regards to how this particular show is made. There's the aforementioned Aloe character sheets (which actually are relevant here because I stated "from conception to completion" and those sheets were made specifically for the episode). There's also the interview WPM conducted with producer Masamitsu Hidaka ("How far in advance do you make the episodes and movies? He stated 6 months for the episodes, 1 1.5 months for the voice acting, and 1 year for the movies (which we already knew). He also said in the previous interview that it takes him one week to make a storyboard per each episode, which I forgot to mention.") which, while a bit old, has not been contradicted by anyone else working on the show since. And then there's the production art for BW 020 that sunyshore obtained six months before the episode aired.

All of this contradicts the claim that it only takes "one to three months" to complete an episode of this show.

You've obviously spent a lot of time studying this subject and know a lot about how animation is done in Japan. You seem to know what you're talking about. I just don't buy this idea that it only takes one to three months to make this show.

Like I said, the story is outlined ahead of time, but the actual script-to-finished product isn't worked on for six months. Nobody would make any money if everyone was spending that much time on a series where each episode has so few complex cuts or a high number of drawings. Six months is the entire time Yoshinari You spent directing and teaching animators on the production of Little Witch Academia, a twenty-six minute short with seventeen thousand drawings (Pokemon probably works on three-to-four thousand drawings an episode, likely less than four thousand). The point I've been trying to make is that it is entirely possible the Easter Egg never said the original air date of this episode because the cut was never even worked on at that time.

Episodes might be scheduled six months in advance, but that doesn't mean anyone is available to begin working on them six months in advance. :wink:

 

[Dogasu]

And yet that doesn't explain how production artwork for BW 020 - not a story idea, not a script, not a storyboard, but actual, rough animation - was obtained almost six months before the episode aired.

Also, Crunchyroll is blocked here in Japan so I can't see that last link you posted

Either way, it's possible the newspaper element didn't exist at the time the Kuzumo episode was postponed but none of us can say with any degree of certainty that it definitely did not. All we can do is make educated guesses.

 

[JacobYBM]

Welp, now I look like I can read for squat. Having genga (or perhaps damned well-done layouts) that early fits in with Episode #24 apparently being dubbed. The schedule for this series seems even better than that of Naruto Shippuuden.